India races to make history in space: Everything to know about ISRO's 100th satellite

In a milestone event in India's space history, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch its 100th satellite on January 12, Friday, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota. The PSLV-C40/Cartosat-2 Series Satellite Mission will be launched at 9.28 am.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 42nd flight (PSLV-C40), will launch the 710 kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite for Earth observation and 30 co-passenger satellites together weighing about 613 kg at lift-off.

The co-passenger satellites comprise one microsatellite and one nanosatellite from India, and three microsatellites and 25 nanosatellites from six countries -- Canada, Finland, France, South Korea, the UK and the US. The total weight of all the 31 satellites carried onboard PSLV-C40 is about 1,323 kg.

"The microsatellite will be India's 100th satellite in space," Satellite Centre director M Annadurai told IANS.

The 28 international satellites are being launched as part of the commercial arrangements between Antrix Corporation Limited (Antrix), the commercial arm of ISRO, and the international customers.

Cartosat-2 Series Satellite will be the primary satellite carried by PSLV-C40. This remote sensing satellite is similar in configuration to earlier satellites in the series and is intended to augment data services to the users.

The imagery sent by the satellite will be useful for cartographic applications, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and regulation, utility management like road network monitoring, water distribution, creation of land use maps, change detection to bring out geographical and manmade features and various other Land Information System (LIS) as well as Geographical Information System (GIS) applications.

In its 39th flight (PSLV-C37) in February 2017, ISRO had successfully launched a 714 kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite along with 103 co-passenger satellites from Sriharikota. It was the 38th consecutively successful mission of PSLV. The total weight of all the 104 satellites carried on-board was 1,378 kg.

After a flight of 16 minutes 48 seconds, the satellites had achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 506 km inclined at an angle of 97.46 degree to the equator and in the succeeding 12 minutes, all the 104 satellites had successfully separated from the PSLV fourth stage in a predetermined sequence beginning with Cartosat-2 series satellite, followed by INS-1 and INS-2.

After separation, the two solar arrays of the Cartosat-2 series satellite were deployed automatically and ISRO's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bengaluru took over the control of the satellite. In the coming days, the satellite was brought to its final operational configuration following which it began to provide remote sensing services using its panchromatic (black and white) and multispectral (colour) cameras.